I'm going to be honest, ethicalsystems.org couldn't scream "bad faith actor" to me harder if it had a high-shouldered leather office chair, a facial scar, and a grumpy white cat.
Own your ideology or don't.
New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
251–260 of 734 posts
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#252>Similarly, 62 percent of adults told us that journalism was “too political” I don't understand what this even means. Is it that people think that there is too much reporting on politics? Does it mean that people think that journalism is too biased towards political ideologies? Does it mean that people think every story is excessively told through a political lens? Without knowing what these people mean by that it's…
I'm assuming it's journalism being biased towards certain political factions.
I can't comment on other countries, but this is definitely true for the UK. If you look at the top 10 newspapers in terms of circulation (which, AFAIK, are also the biggest online news providers) there is little objective journalism there. It's plain political propaganda for the most of it.
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#253Is there a way we can detect these people and not hire them? It takes enough restraint to refrain from commenting on rampant virtue signalling on LinkedIn and I often fail. Having to deal with it at work would be a step too far.
How about something like, ask their opinion on a contentious technical issue (like dynamic vs static typing). Then, after they've finished answering, ask them to argue sincerely for the opposite viewpoint, and see if they can. A common trait among cancel culture types is they're unwilling to hear/consider the perspectives of people who disagree with them, so they wouldn't be able to fairly present the opposing argume…
I initially liked the idea of empathy tests, however I'm not sure if it's a global personality variable - that someone might be emphatic to someone else and not be open to other technological viewpoints.
I now think that it's not empathy that's missing. The woke are able to empathize with many people. It's primarily that they believe certain others are not actually people and worthy of their empathy. Bigotry. Othering.
Perhaps questions about Ethical Source licensing might be rewarding? Or talking about types of users?
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#254Is there a way we can detect these people and not hire them? It takes enough restraint to refrain from commenting on rampant virtue signalling on LinkedIn and I often fail. Having to deal with it at work would be a step too far.
I simply unfriended everyone online who virtue signals and/or engages in hostile politics. That includes some family members. If asked, it’s simple enough to explain calmly and honestly.
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, the expectation of being able to say anything and not be responsible for it, is what's wrong. Say what you want, but be prepared to stand by it and take responsibility for it, in a court of law if necessary. Free speech is a right, and thus it requires the person exercising that right to understand that it does not absolve them from being held responsible for what they say or express. Just like the 2nd amendment…
I'm not really sure what the amendments to the US constitution have to do with a post about British workplaces, but I think you have a very different view on "freedom of speech" than the classically liberal one that it is arguably founded upon. That's OK, of course. In the UK we don't have and have never had freedom of speech. In fact, we have some of the harshest libel laws in the world. There are very many conseque…
>In the UK we don't have and have never had freedom of speech.
That's not true - we do have freedom of speech.
It's just not absolute freedom of speech, which is a frankly horrible idea, because absolute rights almost always undermine other rights. (As an example, absolute freedom of speech would preclude all rights to privacy and confidentiality.)
What we have is a framework of fundamental rights, most of which are "qualified rights" and must be balanced with each other.
That it is a balancing act means that it's an imperfect system, for sure, but it's better not to allow the use of one right to trample over another.
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#256I might be one of these progressive activists, and this is interesting to read and reflect on. I am quite vocal about culture, hiring, compensation etc, though I would definitely not say that I feel "confident being vocal" - it actually feels very exposed and quite vulnerable (in part because others don't necessarily share their own views). The reason I'm still vocal about it is that I care, I would feel much more sa…
As someone who is very much not one of the 13%, I'm curious: how would you react to objections and disagreement on those issues?
Objections and disagreements are pretty common (many of the things that I would like to change are not easily compatible with neoliberalism/the modern corporation). I try to use them as learning opportunities to understand other people's viewpoints and refine/revise my own. I do get frustrated as well though, sometimes things seem self-evident to me and then it's painful when that view is not shared - in some cases it's not about arguments but about the underlying value systems from which people derive their arguments (e.g. what does fair mean to a person). These things are definitely not easy to talk about and I also don't think that I always manage to find the right tone or approach, but I try to be persistent and adjust as I find out how things work.
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fheyly agree that we should have humility in our policies, but should also be aware that all "progress" is not positive. In fact, how is progress even defined in this case? Is all change progressive? Or is change that younger people agree with automatically positive? At some point before the Spanish Inquisition, one could have argued that this new idea of burning witches was "progress" because it reduced the evil i…
I love spotting predictive text mistakes after the edit timeout expires :/ WTF is "fheyly"?
Maybe it's someone's "personal pronoun"? /s
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#258One of the most depressing/irritating things in modern political and current affairs discourse is how standard it has become to say things like “X group is stopped more frequently by police” with the implication that the expectation is for equal rates of stopping. Basically the entire point of the entire discipline of statistics is that there are covariates, and substructure within a population, that cause expected rates to differ, even in the absence of the sorts of bias that are the focus. I wouldn’t want my children to think that sort of content was anything less than stupid since if they did not, they would be unable to think rationally about data.
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#259I consider myself a very politically informed person. I'm not a politically active person however, largely for the reasons mentioned in the article. I considered myself a liberal by the standards of the time I grew up in. My views on some social issues, particularly 'free speech', are considered a conservative now. I am one of the people the article is concerning who will not publicly voice their political opinions i…
> Even correcting people who are clearly misinformed on clear matters of fact can cause offense. This is so true. I've seen polling showing that large numbers of people believe that the number of unarmed black men fatally shot by American police every year is in the "thousands" or even "tens of thousands". And the further to the left the media people consume, the higher they're likely to believe the number is. The ac…
(Someone commented that it's "insane" to say that you should be able to shoot someone if they attack you with their fists and I typed out a long reply, but they had deleted their comment before I could post it, so I'm going to post my reply here so I don't feel like I wasted my efforts)
Yes, it absolutely is a valid reason to shoot someone, and anyone with training in firearms or self-defense would agree. You're not necessarily going to get shot for throwing a single punch, but you're increasing your chances of getting shot exponentially.
First of all, a fist can be a deadly weapon. It's possible to kill someone with a single punch, or knock them unconscious, or do all manner of nasty and permanent damage. Cops know this, as does anyone who knows anything about violence.
And this is crucial: every interaction you have with a cop in the US is colored by the fact that the cop has a gun on his waist. If you attack a cop with any kind of weapon, you've demonstrated that you're willing to use violence against him, and he has no way of knowing how far you're willing to take it. What if you get your hands on his gun? He knows that a single punch might be enough to disable him, even temporarily, and even a second's delay might be enough for you to grab his gun - and then he's fucked.
Cops don't carry guns for the exclusive purpose of stopping other people with guns. The point of a gun is to make someone stop doing what they're doing, and sometimes you really need someone to stop doing what what they're doing, no matter what they're armed with. We can't expect cops to be champion bare-knuckle boxers: if someone's attacking you with their fists, they're potentially threatening your life, and it's not unreasonable to use whatever tools are at your disposal to neutralise the threat.
Again: this doesn't mean that every use of fists should immediately be met with a death sentence. My point is just that guns can in some (not all) circumstances be a legitimate response to fists.
And on the more general point, that's not the only case in which it's justifiable for an unarmed person to be shot. In some cases of "unarmed" men being shot by police, the perp was trying to ram the cops with his car.
Conversely, not every case of an "armed" man being shot by police is justified either. Philando Castile had a gun in his car, but he didn't deserve to die.
Re: New evidence that British workplaces are losing viewpoint diversity
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Engaging in real-life political discussions in the current climate is basically all risk, zero reward.
From what I remember, in polite circles it was always known that you should never discuss politics and religion with anyone except your immediate family and close friends.
It's long been thought unwise to discuss politics with your family:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair#/media/File:Car...
